. the president's nominee to be defense secretary, former republican secretary chuck hagel was confirmed today, and will be sworn in and take over at that time pentagon. chuck hagel had the majority support, all the republicans in the senate, and the majority. it took this long to get him confirmed because republicans filibustered his nomination. nobody has ever done that before. nobody has ever before used a filibuster to block the confirmation of a cabinet nominee, ever in the history of our country, but they did it to chuck hagel. why? who knows? republicans in the senate pulled the fire alarm on this one, they broke glass in case of emergency. they did something that has never been done before in the history of the republic. and because they did it, there is now precedent for them to filibuster the next nominee. they broke glass for a nominee who in his case had bipartisan support to be confirmed. and the republicans in the senate did it in a way that didn't actually stop the confirmation. so you won nothing. but you did further break the institution where you work. there i